JLIBRARY OF CONGRESS. { ■ 

# $ 

[SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.] | 

# ^y. f\S Wb"\ I 

4) = & 

I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, t 



THE 



CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 



AND 



SEALING ORDINANCES, 



4 • • » > 







PHILADELPHIA : 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

NO. 821 CHESTNUT STREET. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 

JAMES DUNLAP, Treas., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 

of Pennsylvania. 



STEREOTYPED BT 

JESPER HARDING & SON, 

INQUIRER BUILDING, SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following article is republished* 
by request of the Board of Publication. 
A few passages have been amplified or 
modified, in order more fully to elucidate 
the views presented. A few extracts 
from other authors have also been added. 

The Author. 

* From the Princeton Eeview. 

(3) 



THE 

CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH 

AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 



There are two classes who have no 
difficulty in determining the precise ec- 
clesiastical status of the children of the 
Church. The Baptists cut the matter 
short by denying them any place what- 
ever in the Church, until they obtain it 
by a personal profession of faith. They 
recognize no difference between the child- 
ren of believers and others, except so 
far as their condition is likely to insure 
superior Christian instruction and train- 
ing at the hands of pious parents. In all 
1* (5) 



6 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 



other respects they are on the visible 
footing of unbelievers and their children. 
They belong to " those that are without" 
the precincts of the Church and the com- 
munion of saints. They are to be treated 
and dealt with accordingly. Like all 
worldlings, heathens, and pagans, until 
they experience a conscious, inward re- 
generating change, of which they give a 
credible account, and make a credible 
profession, they are to account themselves, 
and to be accounted and proceeded with, 
as " aliens from the commonwealth of 
Israel, strangers to the covenants of pro- 
mise, without hope, and without God in 
the world." All this at once flows from, 
and culminates in, the denial of baptism 
to infants, the seal of the covenant of 
grace and badge of membership in the 
Church. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. i 

If this extreme, espoused by a small 
section of Christendom, provides an easy 
disposal of all questions relative to the 
children of the Church, by placing them 
without its pale, the opposite extreme is 
no less summary and decisive in relieving 
those who adopt it, of all embarrassment 
in this regard. The whole ritual school, 
including Romanists and romanizing 
Protestants, not only hold that infants 
are to be baptized, but that they are re- 
generated by baptism. It matters not 
whether they say it regenerates by its 
own inherent mystical efficacy, or whether 
the Holy Spirit does the regenerating 
work coinstantaneously with its adminis- 
tration. On either hypothesis, the re- 
sult is the same. The rite of baptism 
brings with it regeneration as an opus 
operatum. But whoever is regenerate and 



8 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

baptized, is a member of the Church vis- 
ible and invisible, to all intents and pur- 
poses. He is to be accounted and dealt 
with as such. He is fully bound to every 
duty, and entitled to every privilege in 
the house of God, of which his age and 
circumstances will admit. 

Between these extremes, which, be- 
cause they are extremes, thus meet in 
cutting the knot which they do not untie, 
ranges the vast body of Protestant and 
evangelical Christians, who practise in- 
fant baptism and count it a divine insti- 
tution. Among these, all grades of opin- 
ion between the two extremes above 
noted may be found. Many have no de- 
terminate opinion on the subject, unless 
a vague impression that the baptism of 
infants is a lawful, beautiful and edifying 
rite, or that it is a token of Christian in- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 9 

struction being provided for the child, be 
reckoned such. Many who hold thus 
much, and hold it strenuously, are wholly 
at a loss as to the precise status of baptized 
children, the manner and extent in which 
baptism either signifies, seals, or procures 
any advantage which they would not 
possess without it. Under the influence 
of this theory, which underlies the Bap- 
tist system, a large proportion of the 
members of some Pedobaptist commu- 
nions neglect or refuse the baptism of 
their children altogether* Having lost 
the sense or faith of the things signified 
by the ordinance, either they will not 
take the trouble to go through with what 
they deem a useless ceremony, or they 

* Kecent statistics, published in our religious journals, 
have shown a wide and deplorable omission in this 
respect. 



10 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

utterly ignore and repudiate it as worse 
than useless. Baptist proselytism must 
needs thrive on such aliment. This state 
of things is, in the long run, inevitable, 
where the doctrinal inculcations, or prac- 
tical administration of Churches either 
imply the unimportance of infant baptism, 
or. fail to show how far and wherein it is 
important. Such a system must, by its 
very incongruity, end in making those 
who are real, avowed Baptists, or produce 
a recoil which will lead men to look about 
for more solid and stable foundations. 
Occasionally one in the violence of his 
rebound from this insane rationalistic 
view, strikes upon ritualism or some 
vague mysticism not easily distinguished 
from it. Transcendental theology making 
Christ chiefly the embodiment and vehicle 
of a theanthropic life for the race, which 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 11 

life is deposited in the Church, and com- 
municated by it through the sacraments, 
often offers the buoyant medium of such 
a transit to mystic ritualism, and gilds it 
with a philosophic as well as churchly 
glare. But the vastly greater number, 
in fleeing from lifeless rationalism, do not 
thus overfly the gospel into equally life- 
less formalism. Believing that there is 
most precious truth signified, and bless- 
ing sealed, by infant baptism, and that it 
is of God, they would not surrender it 
for worlds. Yet they cannot define its 
nature and effects fully to their own sat- 
isfaction, although they possess some dim 
and struggling conceptions of them. But 
when they attempt to articulate these 
conceptions in express statement or defi- 
nition, they find it difficult to avoid re- 
presentations which either emasculate it 



12 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

down to rationalism, or ossify it into ritu- 
alism. We have met many evangelical 
clergymen in precisely this state of mind, 
full believers in the divine institution of 
infant baptism, yet craving more light as 
to its precise import and efficacy, and 
urging us to examine and discuss the 
subject. We have met with few who 
have reached a mode of apprehending the 
matter altogether satisfactory to them- 
selves. 

The catholic doctrine on this subject, 
as shown in the creeds of Christendom, 
is, that the children of believers are mem- 
bers of the Church, and are to receive 
baptism as the badge of such member- 
ship, and seal of the duties and privileges 
pertaining to it. But great diversities 
of opinion and practice prevail in refer- 
ence to the kind of membership in- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 13 

volved, and the doctrinal and practical 
consequences which thence result. There 
are some firm Pedobaptists, however, 
who adopt the principle, that the children 
of believers, as such, are not members of 
the visible Church, or in covenant with 
God, until they become so by their own 
personal and professed faith and repen- 
tance. They are on the footing of other 
children in this respect. They hold, that 
infant baptism imports merely the dedi- 
cation of the child to God by the parent. 
It is thus a seal of the membership and 
covenant interest of the parents, but not of 
the child.* Our observation has convinced 
us that this is the highest conception of it 

* This view is elaborately defended in " Inquiry into 
the end and design of Baptism," by the Kev. Cyprian 
Strong, one of the leading ministers of Connecticut, in the 
last century. 
2 



14 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

entertained by great numbers. Whether 
they have taken pains to examine the 
subject enough to form any distinct spe- 
culative principles, or even conceptions, 
in regard to it or not, all their procedures, 
with respect to baptized children, (their 
own or others,) prove that they discern 
in the rite nothing more than a solemn 
token of parental desire that the child 
may be the Lord's. This theory of the 
position of the children of God's people 
too is, for substance, that of the Baptists. 
The only difference respects the adminis- 
tration of the rite itself, not the actual 
status of the children who receive it. It 
results in a substantial adoption of Baptist 
views and practice, with regard to the 
children of the Church. Although it 
finds little countenance in the symbols, 
or standard theology, or even the prac- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 15 

tice of evangelical Christendom, as a 
whole, yet it controls the practice of 
large masses of evangelical Christians in 
our country. Hence, it is necessary to 
signalize it. Herein we are persuaded 
our Christianity suffers loss. Many are 
beginning to feel and deplore this defi- 
ciency, who yet hardly know what to 
substitute for it, without swinging to the 
contrary extreme. Peculiar circumstan- 
ces, to which we may yet advert, have 
contributed to this state of things in large 
sections of the American Church. But, 
whatever be its cause, it calls for a dis- 
cussion of the subject, in the light of first 
principles. 

Passing from this barren theory, the 
catholic doctrine, that the children of 
Christians are Church members, which 
alone furnishes a solid basis for the rite of 



16 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

infant baptism, has been adopted by 
various parties in a non-natural sense. 
These diverse conceptions are shown in 
the different views taken of their claims to 
the special instructions and oversight of 
the Church, during the period of their 
growth and nurture, the conditions of their 
admission to the Lord's Supper, and their 
relation to the discipline of the Church, 
when come to the age of discretion; and, 
especially, as inclusive of all else, of the 
attitude in which they presumptively 
stand, whether as among or outside of 
God's people, and if among them, of the 
way and conditions whereby that connec- 
tion is supposed to terminate. 

Many hold that they are members 
only quasi, or in such a sense that the 
Church owes them no duties nor privi- 
leges, above the unbaptized. They are not 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 17 

under its inspection, government, or care, 
in any proper sense, till they profess to 
have experienced that conscious change, 
which opens the door of full Church pri- 
vilege alike to the baptized and unbap- 
tized. Although they are born, in a sort, 
members, and as such have the seal of 
baptism, yet this is a token and pledge 
of nothing but of that Christian instruc- 
tion and training, which all pious parents 
are bound to impart. We are sure it is no 
exaggeration, when we say, that in a 
considerable portion of our evangelical 
Churches, there is no recognition, no 
consciousness of any relation being held 
by baptized children, prior to conscious 
and professed conversion, other than that 
of outsiders to the Church, in common with 
the whole world lying in wickedness — at 
least that portion of the world which, hav- 

2* 



18 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

ing the light of the gospel, heeds it not. 
Hence, as they grow up, until by con- 
scious conversion they come out of the 
world, in which this theory puts them, 
all trace and recognition of their Church 
relation disappear. Whenever they see 
their way clear to profess their faith, and 
come to the Lord's table, it is regarded 
as joining the Church, just as if they had 
never belonged to it. No difference is 
put between them and the unbaptized, 
in the apprehensions, the procedures, the 
whole practical life of the Church, except 
that the latter, in joining its fellowship, 
receive the initiatory rite, which they 
have never received before. One great 
evil of this inadequate system is, that 
while it makes infant baptism a seal of 
Christian teaching and training to be 
given to the child, it always, in some 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 19 

degree, and often wholly, prevents such 
instruction and nurture, or frustrates 
their efficacy. The doctrine in ques- 
tion, withal, is contradicted by every 
representation which the Bible gives of 
the nature and significance of baptism; 
and by all the scriptural covenants, 
promises, and averments of every kind, 
on which pedobaptism is based. For 
these covenants and promises are, that 
God will be their God, and that his word 
shall not depart out of their mouth. These 
children are pronounced " children of the 
covenant," "holy." This does not ensure 
that they all are or will be inwardly 
holy. But it does imply a connection 
with the people of God, such as subsists 
between the church visible and invisible, 
and that such of them as fail to make 
God their God, are false to their position 
as children of the covenant. The mere 



20 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

outward Jew, who had no circum- 
cision of the heart, was false to his own 
position. For his outward circumcision 
was a sign and seal of the righteousness 
of faith. Rom. ii. 28, 29; iv. 11. So 
baptism is a sign and seal of the grace 
of life; and the baptized unbeliever vio- 
lates the requirements of his baptism, as 
the unbelieving professor violates the re- 
quirements of his profession. 

Another theory, adopted to reconcile 
the actual church-membership of baptized 
children, with the negation of the special 
obligations and privileges pertaining there- 
to, is that held by Dr. D wight and some 
other New England divines. It is in sub- 
stance this, that they are members of the 
Church universal, but not of any partic- 
ular organized Church. This results from 
the cardinal principle of Congregational- 
ism, that there is no organic Church state 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 21 

except in particular congregations, and 
that the formal cause of it in them, is the 
voluntary confederation of the members. 
Infants being incapable of such voluntary 
covenanting, of course, cannot be members 
of any organized Church. Hence they 
cannot, more than other children, be under 
Church inspection and discipline. Many, 
however, who adopted substantially this 
view% held that by virtue of their member- 
ship in the Church universal, they have 
at mature age a right to certain Church 
privileges, (such as the baptism of their 
children,) from which the unbaptized, 
otherwise like them, must be debarred. 
The scriptural principle plainly is, that 
all Christians, as members of the 
body of Christ, and of one another, are 
bound to have a care of, and to be sub- 
ject one to another in the Lord; that 



22 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

to this end, they should be so organized 
that all may discharge their obligations 
of love and fidelity to each, and each 
may be subject to all : that, irrespective 
of any formal stipulation, the members 
of the Church universal should also be 
members of the particular congregation 
of believers in which they statedly wor- 
ship, so as to be subject to the govern- 
ment, and entitled to the privileges of 
the Church as therein respectively ad- 
ministered and enjoyed ; and hence, that 
for all purposes of this kind, baptized 
children are members of the same par- 
ticular Churches as their parents. This 
last principle was expressly adopted by 
the great Congregational Synod of Boston 
in 1662. 

For a long period a large proportion of 
the New England Churches, with the 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 23 

sanction and recommendation of this 
Synod, maintained and acted upon the 
principle that persons baptized in infancy, 
and free from scandal, on making a pro- 
fession of faith and good intentions, which 
still was taken to be short of a profession 
of saving faith and repentance, were to 
have the privilege of baptism for their 
children. This was styled, in the phrase 
of the day, the Half-way Covenant. 
Others, of whom Mr. Stoddard, of North- 
ampton, maternal grandfather of Edwards, 
was the most distinguished champion and 
representative, held that such a partial 
confession or covenant, (one too which 
men regarding themselves as uncon- 
verted and graceless, but yet sincere, 
might properly make,) entitled to the 
Lord's Supper. It w T as a part of their 
theory that this Sacrament is a con- 



24 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

verting as well as a sanctifying ordinance. 
This is the scheme which Edwards as- 
sailed and demolished in his celebrated 
treatise on the " Qualifications for Com- 
munion." It was not an unnatural ex- 
crescence from the half-way covenant 
system introduced by the Synod, although 
in direct contradiction of one of its pro- 
positions. For the effect of recognizing 
it as proper for those to " give themselves 
and their children to God"* in express 

* The propositions of the Synod were as follows : — 
" 1. They that, according to Scripture, are members of 
the visible Church, are the subjects of baptism. 2. The 
members of the visible Church according to Scripture, are 
coofederate believers, in particular Churches, and their in- 
fant seed, i. e. children in minority, whose next parents, one 
or both, are in covenant. 3. The infant seed of con- 
federate visible believers are members of the same 
Church with their parents, and when grown up are per- 
sonally under the watch, discipline an4 government of 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 25 

public covenant, who were confessedly 
unfit for the Lord's Supper, was to make 
the great mass feel sufficiently secure 
and hopeful, while shrinking from the 
higher responsibilities and engagements 
implied in receiving this sacrament. The 
consequence was, that in most Churches 
under this regimen, there were few mem- 
bers in full communion. The impulse 
was therefore strong to devise a theory 



that Church. 4 . These adult persons are not therefore 
to be admitted to full communion, (the Lord's Supper,) 
because they are and continue members, without such 
farther qualifications as the word of God requireth 
thereunto. 5. Church-members who were admitted in 
minority, understanding the doctrine of faith, and pub- 
licly professing their assent thereto, not scandalous 
in life, and solemnly owning the covenant before the 
Church, wherein they give up themselves and their 
children to the Lord, and subject themselves to the 
government of Christ in the Church, their children are 
to be baptized." 



26 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

to meet this state of things, and enlarge 
the number of communicants.* The 
theory and practice of these Churches 
seem to have veered between the propo- 
sitions of the Synod and the doctrine of 
Stoddard, until the whole half-way cov- 
enant system, which had been gradually 
dying out, became extinct in the early 

* Stoddard's doctrine is thus stated by himself : " That 
which I am to prove is, that some unsanctified men have 
a right before God to the Lord's Supper." Appeal to 
the Learned, p. 20, as quoted by Edwards, Works, New 
York edition, vol. 4. p. 486. On the same page, he 
quotes "Rlake, another prominent champion of this school, 
as saying : " That faith which is the condition of the 
promise, is not the condition in for o Dei of a title to the 
seal." The meaning of this is clear. Faith is not 
necessary to the proper participation of the Lord's Sup- 
per. Hence those may properly be admitted to it, who 
in their own judgment and the charitable judgment of 
the Church, are destitute of piety. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 27 

part of this century; having received its 
mortal blow in the treatise of Edwards, 
to which we have adverted. 

The grand error of the system in- 
itiated by the Synod does not fully ap- 
pear on the face of the propositions pro- 
pounded by its authority. Certainly, 
baptized parents, duly enlightened, who 
could conscientiously make the profes- 
sions and covenants required in the fifth 
proposition, ought to be adjudged, in foro 
ecclesioe, entitled to baptism for their 
children. The error lay in the applica- 
tion of it, which was both intended and 
adopted. It was avowedly designed for 
the use of persons confessedly unfit for the 
Lord's Supper, and consciously destitute 
of Christian piety. But it is in reality, if 
intelligently made, as the proposition 
supposes, a profession of religion. This 



28 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

practice was called " owning the cove- 
nant/' L e., taking in person, for them- 
selves, the covenants made for them by 
their parents in infancy. In the Church 
records, it was often stated, that those 
who did it, "recognized their baptismal 
obligations" — a close approach to the 
practice of confirmation. 

The practical consequences of this ad- 
mission to one or both sacraments, of the 
ungodly, when accounted and accounting 
themselves such, was that the great bulk 
of the people, on becoming parents, 
" owned the covenant," in order to have 
their children baptized. This they did 
mostly without making any pretensions 
to piety. Where the Stoddardean the- 
ory prevailed, many of them also went 
to the Lord's table with no pretence of 
any higher qualification, unless this step 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 29 

might be understood to imply some ear- 
nestness in seeking conversion. This 
quasi profession, and membership, with 
the privilege of baptism for their children, 
satisfied the consciences of most, while 
it was more grateful to their wicked 
hearts, than the obligations of complete 
ehur^i-standing. Thus vital, experimen- 
tal piety constantly decayed; a dead 
formalism supervened. A decent moral- 
ity, and respectful regard for Christian- 
ity, were in many cases the great 
results expected and achieved among the 
mass of the congregation. Such persons 
were seldom competent or disposed to 
give their children a faithful Christian 
training. Ecclesiastical discipline was 
paralyzed. This standard of morality 
was itself vague, fluctuating, elastic to 

every demand of expediency. The system 
3* 



30 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 



tended to a ceaseless degeneracy. It 
was hard to say what shortcomings in 
parents should debar their children from 
the boon of baptism. At length the 
"owning of the covenant" became a mere 
form, which the heedless, and sometimes 
the profane, did not scruple to go through ; 
thus making solemn vows which they pro- 
fanely violated, in order to obtain holy 
rites which they openly desecrated. This 
system contained the seeds of its own 
dissolution. It must either end in the 
extinction of religion, or be uprooted by 
its revival. The latter was the fortunate 
issue. 

And yet, as every error is but truth 
exaggerated, belittled, distorted, or in 
some way torn from its proper relations, 
supplements, or expletives, so that truth 
is apt to be lost or disparaged in the pro- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 31 

cess of recovery from such error Ex- 
tremes often meet; and they often beget 
their opposites. The present case is no 
exception. The abolition of the abuses 
of the doctrine of infant Church-member- 
ship has been accomplished in a manner 
and in circumstances which have led to 
the forgetting, ignoring, or disowning of 
that precious truth itself, and the loss of 
not a little of the sanctifying influence and 
fruits of holiness that cluster upon it. 
The consciousness and recognition of the 
Church-membership of baptized children 
have widely disappeared from the doc- 
trinal and practical life of those Churches 
— a fact deplored by some, and denied 
by none of authority among them. The 
strongest form in which it has been 
held, to any extent, within any recent 
period, is that already indicated as the 



32 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

doctrine of Dr. D wight, viz., that bap- 
tized children belong to the Church uni- 
versal, but not to any particular Church. 
This weakens or destroys its practical 
power. The result is, that baptized 
children are, to all practical intents, 
viewed and led to view themselves as not 
of the Church, but of the world, until 
they enter the fold of Christ as other 
converts from the world do. 

We have dwelt the longer on the his- 
torical development of doctrine on this 
subject in the Congregational body, be- 
cause it has had an influence in shaping 
the principles and practice of evangelical 
Christians throughout our land. For as 
the body of Christ is one, and all its 
members are actuated by one life, despite 
all divisions and conflicts, these members 
will interpenetrate each other with a re- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 33 

ciprocal energy. Each will be felt by 
all, and all by each. As between Con- 
gregationalists and Presbyterians, this 
has been peculiarly the fact, because, 
until a very recent period, they were re- 
garded as substantially one communion, 
whose chief difference was geographical.* 

* In illustration and proof of this remark, we quote 
from a tract, in defence of Pedobaptism, published in 
New Haven, Connecticut, in 1829, and found in Dr. 
Sprague's Collection of pamphlets in the Princeton 
Theological Library. The author says, in a preliminary 
note, "To avoid circumlocution, and to comply with 
the popular usage in New England, I intend, by the term 
Presbyterians to designate both Presbyterians and Con- 
gregational ists. These denominations are, in fact, both 
one, the difference between them being not in articles of 
belief, but in a few customs, and every attack which is 
made upon one being identified with that upon the other. 
The oneness is constituted also by the complete under- 
standing and correspondence which exist between them." 
So recently did New England, and even New Haven 



34 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

This was all the more so, in refer- 
ence to the present subject, because the 
first controversy that agitated and finally 
sundered the infant Presbyterian body of 
this country, had a marked reference to 
this very point; and because the great 
awakening of that era, with the mighty 
truths and errors which it called into 
life and activity, alike contributed to 
shape the faith and practice of Presby- 
terians and Congregationalists on the sub- 
ject. One question, between the parties 
in the Presbyterian Church, was, What 
evidence of faith and holiness ought the 

Congregationalists feel at one with Presbyterians, and 
call themselves by their name. It is otherwise now. The 
causes and consequences of the original unity, and 
the present comparative weakening of the bonds be- 
tween the two bodies, deserve .profound study, but are 
aside of our present inquiry. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 35 

Church to require of candidates for ad- 
mission to the Lord's Supper? or, rather, 
What ought it to, account and treat as 
credible evidence of piety, which, if pre- 
sented by any, duly qualified otherwise, 
should give them access to sealing ordi- 
nances, or the sacred office, as the case 
may be ? It was, indeed, often stated and 
argued, in the heat of controversy, as 
if it were something else : — by the Old 
Side, as if their antagonists contended 
that none but the regenerate, and those 
who could certainly be known, and know 
themselves as such, had a right to the 
Sacraments, not only in foro conscientice 
et Dei, but also in foro ecclesice ; and by 
the New Side, as if their adversaries 
held that the unregenerate and ungodly, 
as such, were entitled to the Lord's Sup- 
per. Doubtless, in the violence and con- 



36 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

fusion of debate, disputants, on the re- 
spective sides, often said what gave colour 
to the representations of their adversaries. 
But after a careful survey of the retrac- 
tions and qualifications made on both 
sides, we are persuaded that the Old Side 
were opposing that method of examina- 
tion, which proceeds on the theory, that 
the Church can judge the heart, and find 
certain evidence as to who are, and who 
are not regenerate, while they would, by 
no means, say that the Lord's table was 
designed for the ungodly and unbelieving ; 
and that the New Side opposed the idea, 
that unbelievers were qualified for the 
holy communion, and insisted that real 
believers could and should furnish some 
credible evidence of a saving work in 
their souls. Doubtless, too, in a low 
state of Christian life, there had previ- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 37 

ously been a tendency to attenuate the 
requisites to a credible profession, and to 
dwell too little on the necessity of a spirit- 
ual and experimental work in the soul, 
which the Old Side were too slow to re- 
cognize and correct. The reaction from 
this swung to the contrary extreme of 
laying too great stress upon the narration 
of inward experiences, and viewing this 
as the great criterion.* 

* The seventh specification, in the charges brought by 
the Old Side against the New, at the meeting of the 
Synod in 1741, when the disruption was effected, was 
" Their, or some of them, preaching and maintaining, 
that all true converts are as certain of their gracious 
state, as a person can be of what he knows by his out- 
ward senses, and are able to give a narrative of the time 
and manner of their conversion, or else they conclude 
them to be in a natural or graceless state ; and that a 
gracious person can judge of another's gracious state 
otherwise than by his profession and life." This charge 
4 



38 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

This relation of experiences was so 
marked a feature in the great revival 
of 1740., that some have gone the length 

the New Side repelled as a calumnious caricature. 
Nevertheless, that some plausible pretext had been given 
for it, in the course of the awakening, appears from the 
abundant testimonies of Edwards, to the injurious effect 
of this principle, and the practice founded on it, upon 
the revival itself. Gilbert Tennent, likewise, and other 
prominent leaders in the work, felt afterwards called 
upon to utter earnest protestations and warnings against 
it. Tracy (" Great Awakening," p. 74) has, we think, 
exaggerated, when he says, " The fundamental question 
between the parties (Old and New Side Presbyterians) 
was, whether regeneration is a change, attended and fol- 
lowed by an experience, by which the convert and others 
can judge of its reality ; and, of course, whether those 
who have no such experience are to be counted as unre- 
generate, and, therefore, excluded from the communion 
of the Church, and deemed unfit for ministers." This 
statement of the issue accords with the author's theory 
of the revival. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 39 

of making this principle the secret of its 
origin and power.* It was carried to 

* " This doctrine of the new-birth as an ascertainable 
change, was not generally prevalent in any communion 
when the revival commenced ; it was urged as of funda- 
mental importance by the leading promoters of the re- 
vival ; it took strong hold of those whom the revival af- 
fected ; it naturally led to such questions as the revival 
brought up and caused to be discussed ; its perversions 
naturally grew into, or associated with, such errors as 
the revival promoted. * * * It must be possible for 
those who are qualified, to judge whether a man has 
made those discoveries of religious truth, and felt those 
emotions, which are essential to religious experience. * 

" The history of the ' Great Awakening' (of 1740) is 
the history of this idea, making its way through some 
communities where it had fallen into comparative neglect, 
and through others where it was nearly or quite unknown ; 
overturning theories, and habits, and forms of organiza- 
tion inconsistent with it, * * * and leading to habits of 
thought and practical arrangements in harmony with 
it." — The Great Awakening, by Joseph Tracy. Boston, 
1845 : pp. 9, 12, 13. 



40 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

such a pitch of extravagance, that the 
great Edwards was constrained to publish 
repeated and solemn protests against its 
abuses. And yet his protestations prove 
that, if not he, many of his coadjutors 
were providentially in an attitude which 
led them for a time to magnify the im- 
portance, not of manifestations and 
avowals of such views as are Christian, 
and flow from regeneration ; but also of 
such accounts or other indications of its 
upspring and progress in the soul, as 
imply the consciousness of a radical change 
within some definite and definable period ; 
that these thus became, and have since 
continued to be, in the popular mind, to 
a great extent, the test of piety ; while 
the value, if not the possibility, of true 
Christian feeling, inwrought by the Holy 
Ghost, and developed gradually by 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 41 

Christian nurture, so as sometimes to pre- 
clude distinct statements of any time be- 
fore which it was not, or of the manner 
and order of its progress in the soul, was 
then, and, with too many has been since, 
unduly ignored, and altogether under- 
rated. This was the natural consequence 
of their revulsion front the great abuses 
of the principle in question, which they 
were called to reform.* Yet, although 

* Mr. Tracy (" Great Awakening," p. 14) only re- 
flects a fashion which originated in times he describes, 
when he bestows the epithet Arminianism upon " the idea 
of a gradual, imperceptible, and unascertainable regene- 
ration." It is of no consequence whether this idea be 
it right or wrong, belongs to Arminianism or not. 
Everything depends on the meaning, or rather, the in- 
tended application of these terms. If by " unascertain- 
able," be meant that the renewed soul will not let its 
light shine, and that we are not to know it by its fruits 
of holiness in profession and life, then such a scheme is 
4* 



42 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

such was the drift, tendency, and effect 
of the teachings and procedures which 

false, whether Arminian or not. But if it be meant to 
imply, that we can search or know the hearts, or be sure 
who are regenerate, this is the prerogative of God. Be 
occultis Ecclesia non judicat. It judges only of a credible 
profession ; and it can erect no standard of credible pro- 
fession, which will keep out all tares, without also ex- 
cluding the wheat If by " gradual" be meant, that re- 
generation itself is not instantaneous, that there is not a 
moment before which the subject of it is not, after which 
he is, a child of God ; this also is to be utterly repudi- 
ated. But if it be meant that the development of it in 
consciousness, may be so gradual as to be, in its succes- 
sive stages, even " imperceptible," then Mr. Tracy him- 
self concedes it. He says, page 11, " In some, the pro- 
cess occupies several years ; in others, it is so rapid that 
some of the steps are seen only in their results ; in others 
stiil, it is repeatedly interrupted and resumed. Varieties 
are caused by the varieties of intellectual character and 
style of thought," &c. Among the most holy and or- 
thodox men, whom we have ever known, are those who 
assured us that they remembered not the time when they did 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 43 

shaped this awakening, in the issue none 
ever insisted more strenuously than 

not fear God, or when they experienced any marked con- 
scious revolution in their feelings toward him. In one 
sense, this regeneration, in such cases, is neither gradual, 
imperceptible, nor unascertainable. In another, and that 
probably the sense intended, to some extent at least, by 
Mr. Tracy and others, it is the subject of all these attri- 
butes. To limit the Holy One of Israel, who worketh 
when, where, and how he will, to that mode of renewing 
the soul, which involves a marked and known era of con- 
scious change, is far enough from Calvinism and from 
Scripture, whatever may be its relations to Arminianism. 
Surely, God sanctifies some from the womb. He makes 
others, from a child, know the holy Scriptures in a sav- 
ing sense. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings he 
ordains praise. Edwards, whom Mr. Tracy classes on 
his side, and whose circumstances doubtless led him 
to emphasise the class of truths weighing on this side of 
the scale, rather than another class which balance, modi- 
fy, and interpret them, says, " The Scripture gives us 
ground to think that some infants have the habit of sav- 
ing grace, and that they have a new nature given them." 
— Reply to Williams, vol. 4, p. 578. 



44 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

Edwards and Tennent, that the only 
proper evidence of a work of the Spirit, 
is the fruits of the Spirit in all holy dis- 
positions and conduct; and that when 
these are apparent, or credibly professed, 
there is credible proof of regeneration, 
whether the history of any experience 
can be recited or not ; and that all the 
raptures which can be portrayed by the 
tongues of men or angels are worthless 
without them. This truth they vindi- 
cated and reiterated, with an emphasis 
and solemnity worthy of its importance, 
especially in their later treatises, after 
the mischiefs of the opposite error had 
been fully developed. Still, it is appa- 
rent that this great revival, while it re- 
sulted in a great and blessed increase of 
true piety ; while it uplifted the cause of 
spiritual and experimental religion, not 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 45 

only from depression, but even from a 
certain undue disparagement, in the mind 
of the Church ; while it removed the fun- 
gous misgrowths which sloth and unbelief 
had educed from the church-membership 
of baptized children; also, in many 
quarters, unsettled the faith of the Church 
in that pregnant truth, and its logical and 
practical relations. The fruit has ap- 
peared in the distinguishing features of 
our American Christianity for better and 
for worse ; in a remarkable vigour of aggres- 
sive evangelism upon those that are with- 
out, and in too often putting without the 
fold the lambs of the flock, so far, alas ! 
that immense numbers of them are lost, 
past recovery, upon the dark mountains 
of sin ! The latter we ought to correct ; 
the former we should hold fast, and let 
none take our crown. These things ought 



46 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

we to have done, and not to leave the 
other undone. Hence, too, our theology 
has tasked, and often exhausted itself on 
topics subjective, relative to regeneration 
and conversion, while it has been more 
meagre in reference to the objective, di- 
vine, and heavenly truths, which are the 
aliment of faith and love. The number 
is legion, who vaunt it as the super-emi- 
nent glory of American theology, that it 
has made the discovery of the sinner's 
full ability to turn to God. Thus they 
flatter themselves that the way has been 
made clear, as it never has been else- 
where, for alienated children, and all 
other aliens from Christ's house, to enter 
it. After all, he who comes to Christ, 
must be born, " not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
but of God." John i. 12. And herein he 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 47 

will be true to his own covenants. It is 
in Zion that the children of the Church 
are born to newness of life. Since He 
has promised to be their God, it is in 
training them as if they were his ; as if 
it were alone congruous with their posi- 
tion to walk as his children in faith, love, 
hope, and all holy obedience, that we are 
to look for that inworking Spirit, and out- 
working holiness, commensurate with 
their years, which shall seal them as sons 
and daughters of the Lord Almighty. 
This is what we believe to be the bles- 
sed significance and intent of infant bap- 
tism. This is what we have at heart in 
writing these pages ; instead of having 
our children with the seal of Grod's cove- 
nant on their foreheads practically cast 
out, before they cast themselves out, to 
be classed, and thence class themselves, 



48 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

in form and feeling, with the ungodly 
and profane — a course from which, we 
believe they, and the cause of religion 
with them, suffer irreparable loss. 

Our own faith on this subject is ex- 
pressed with great precision in the stand- 
ards of our Church, which themselves 
exhibit the truth in the premises intact 
and inviolate, however any of her mem- 
bers may have come short of the duty 
and privilege thus held forth. And 
whatever our shortcomings, we believe 
the tone of opinion and practice among 
us, is above the average standard among 
Christian bodies most nearly allied to us. 
We rejoice that they are beginning to 
give attention to the subject, and hope 
that all will contribute to meet a com- 
mon want. The half-way covenants and 
mere external covenants, with their af- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 49 

filiated theories and practice, which infest- 
ed the New England Churches, and pre- 
pared the way for extreme reaction, 
never obtained a foothold in our com- 
munion. They doubtless originated in the 
effort to keep the body of communicants, 
who constituted the independent ruling 
power, pure, and at the same time to 
keep their children and children's children 
within the precincts of the Church. It 
is indeed true, that the practice of bap- 
tizing the children of non-communicants 
has in time past been more or less pre- 
valent in our Churches, and in the Re- 
formed Churches of Europe. This, how- 
ever, has not been done on the basis of 
any pseudo-covenant or profession which 
they have made in the capacity of unbe- 
lievers giving themselves or their children 
to God; not on any basis, which, admit- 



50 THE CHILDREN OP THE CHURCH, 

ting children to baptism, excludes those 
who offer them from the Lord's table; 
but either on the ground that their 
parents being by baptism in the Church 
and free from scandal, presumptively in 
the judgment of a discreet charity have 
faith, in its principle and initial actings, 
such as would justify baptism for their 
children, and for themselves if they were 
unbaptized, though not sufficiently de- 
veloped as yet to enable them to come 
with due preparation or confidence to the 
Lord's Supper; or that some pious per- 
son or persons adopt them quoad hoc, and 
undertake to secure their pious nurture.* 
The practice, however, of baptizing any 

* The early defenders of the New England Synod's 
propositions, also based the grant of baptism to non- 
comniunicants, (or their children,) on this distinction be- 
tween initial and developed faith. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 51 

but the natural and adopted children of 
communicants, and such as are reared 
and trained in their families, is, so far 
as we know, now obsolete among us. 
However the practice may have been 
strained at particular times and places, 
the prevailing principle has doubtless 
been, that he who is entitled to the one 
sacrament for himself or his offspring, is 
entitled to the other, till he displays some 
clear disqualification for it in heresy or 
scandal, — Eadem est ratio atrinsqiie sacra- 
menti, each being a seal of the same cove- 
nant of grace.* Those who, giving evi- 
dence of piety to others, distrust them- 
selves, who dare not withhold the seal of 

* This substantially, so far as we have been able to 
discover, has been the common mode of defending this 
practice among those evangelical Protestants, who have 
sanctioned it. Of course, on this, as on all other sub- 
jects, exceptional cases may be found. 



52 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

the covenant from their children, and yet 
dare not come to the Lord's table, lest 
they eat and drink damnation to them- 
selves, are in most communions occasion- 
ally allowed the former privilege, even 
before they feel warranted to accept the 
latter; not because different qualifications 
in kind are requisite for the two sacra- 
ments, but because the Lord's Supper 
requires not mere faith, but faith de- 
veloping and proving itself in self-ex- 
amination and discerning of the Lord's 
body. 1 Cor. xi. 28,29. 

The doctrine of our own Church on 
this whole subject is shown in the follow- 
ing extracts from the Confession of 
Faith, Catechisms, and the Directory for 
Worship : 

1. "The catholic or universal Church, 
which is invisible, consists of the whole 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 53 

number of the elect, that have been or 
shall be gathered into one, under Christ 
the head thereof; and is the spouse, the 
body, the fulness of Him that filleth all 
in all. 

2. "The visible Church, which is also 
catholic or universal under the gospel, 
(not confined to one nation as before un- 
der the law,) consists of all those through- 
out the world that profess the true re- 
ligion, together with their children; and 
is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
the house and family of God, out of 
which there is no ordinary possibility of 
salvation." Confession of Faith, chap. 25. 

3. " Sacraments are holy signs and 
seals of the covenant of grace, immediate- 
ly instituted by God, to represent Christ 
and his benefits, and to confirm our in- 
terest in him; as also to put a visible 

5* 



54 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

difference between those that belong unto 
the Church and the rest of the world, 
and solemnly to engage them to the ser- 
vice of God in Christ according tv/ nis 
word." Confession, chap. 27. 

4. " Baptism is a sacrament of the 
New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ, 
not only for the solemn admission of the 
party baptized into the visible Church, 
but also to be unto him a sign and seal of 
the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting 
into Christ, of regeneration, of remission 
of sins, and of his giving up unto God, 
through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness 
of life ; which sacrament is, by Christ's 
own appointment, to be continued in his 
Church to the end of the world. 

5. "Not only those that do actually 
profess faith in, and obedience unto 
Christ; but also the infants of one or 
both believing parents are to be baptized. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 55 

6. " Although it be a great sin to con- 
temn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace 
and salvation are not so inseparably an- 
nexed to it as that no person can be re- 
generated or saved without it, or that 
all that are baptized are undoubtedly 
regenerated. 

7. " The efficacy of baptism is not tied 
to that moment of time wherein it is ad- 
ministered ; yet notwithstanding, by the 
right use of this ordinance the grace pro- 
mised is not only offered, but really ex- 
hibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, 
to such (whether of age or infants) as 
that grace belongeth unto, according to 
the counsel of God's will, in his appoint- 
ed time." Confession of Faith, chap. 28. 

8. " The Lord's Supper is a sacrament, 
wherein, by giving and receiving bread 
and wine, according to Christ's appoint- 



56 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

ment, his death is showed forth, and the 
worthy receivers are, not after a corporal 
and carnal manner, but by faith, made 
partakers of his body and blood, with all 
his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment 
and growth in grace." Shorter Catechism, 
Quest. 96. 

9. "They that receive the Lord's 
Supper, are, before they come, to prepare 
themselves thereunto, by examining 
themselves of their being in Christ, of 
their sins and wants, of the truth and 
measure of their knowledge, faith, repen- 
tance, love to God and the brethren, 
charity to all men, forgiving those that 
have done them wrong, of their desires 
after Christ, and of their new obedience, 
and by renewing the exercise of these 
graces, by serious meditation and fervent 
prayer. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 57 

10. "One who doubteth of his being in 
Christ, or of his due preparation to the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper, may 
have true interest in Christ, though he 
be not yet assured thereof; and, in God's 
account, hath it, if he be duly affected 
with the apprehension of the want of it, 
and unfeignedly desirous to be found in 
Christ, and to depart from iniquity; in 
which case, (because promises are made, 
and this sacrament is appointed for the 
relief even of weak and doubting Chris- 
tians,) he is to bewail his unbelief, and 
labour to have his doubts resolved; and so 
doing, he may and ought to come to the 
Lord's Supper, that he may be further 
strengthened." Larger Catechism, Quest. 
171-2. 

11. " Children born within the pale of 
the visible Church, and dedicated to God 



58 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 



in baptism, are under the inspection and 
government of the Church; and are to be 
taught to read, and repeat the Catechism, 
the apostles' creed and the Lord's pray- 
er. They are to be taught to pray, to 
abhor sin, to fear God, and obey the 
Lord Jesus Christ. And, when they 
come to years of discretion, if they be 
free from scandal, appear sober and 
steady, and to have sufficient knowledge 
to discern the Lord's body, they ought 
to be informed, it is their duty and pri- 
vilege to come to the Lord's Supper. 

12. "The years of discretion in young 
Christians cannot be precisely fixed. 
This must be left to the prudence of the 
eldership. The officers of the Church 
are the judges of the qualifications of 
those to be admitted to sealing ordinan- 
ces ; and of the time when it is proper to 
admit young Christians to them. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 59 

13. " Those who are to be admitted to 
sealing ordinances, shall be examined as 
to their knowledge and piety. 

14. "The ignorant and the scandalous 
are not to be admitted to the Lord's 
Supper;" and the minister is directed 
publicly to "warn the profane, the igno- 
rant, and scandalous, and those that 
secretly indulge themselves in any 
known sin, not to approach the holy 
table. On the other hand, he shall in- 
vite to this holy table, such as, sensible 
of their lost and helpless state by sin, 
depend upon the atonement of Christ for 
pardon and acceptance with God; such 
as, being instructed in the gospel doc- 
trine, have a competent knowledge to dis- 
cern the Lord's body, and such as desire 
to renounce their sins, and are deter- 
mined to lead a holy and godly life." 
Directory, chaps. 8, 9. 



60 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

To preclude misconstruction in any 
quarter, we observe, at the outset, that 
these articles deny all intrinsic efficacy 
to the sacraments, as such. They avail 
nothing to those who do not exercise 
faith in the things of which they are the 
signs and seals. They are profitable to 
such, only in so far as their faith is 
quickened and strengthened by behold- 
ing the sensible emblems which make 
the " word visible;" and the seals whereby 
God ratifies to us his exceeding great 
and precious promises. They no way 
contravene, they strenuously uphold, 
that great Protestant principle, that we 
get no more from any sacrament than we 
take by faith* Further, they teach 

* Caeterum, ex hoc sacraruento, quemadmodum ex aliis 
omnibus, nihil assequimur nisi quantum fide accipiamus. 
Calvin, de Baptismo. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 61 

that the grace thus signed and sealed by 
the sacraments is not tied to them, either 
as to the persons on whom, or the time 
when, it is bestowed ; that there may be 
true believers who receive the grace 
without its sacramental seals, while many 
unbelievers receive the outward rite 
without the thing signified; baptized 
with water, but not with the Holy 
Ghost; eating and drinking the bread 
and wine, and at the same time eating 
and drinking condemnation to them- 
selves. And further still, with regard 
to baptism, even in cases where the gift 
sealed is bestowed, it may be before or 
after the administration of the rite. All 
which is plainly taught in the word of 
God. 

Keeping this in view, it is next to be 
observed, that our standards assert that 
6 



62 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

the children of believers are members of 
the visible Church — not quasi, but ab- 
solutely. This does not imply that they 
are therefore to perform functions or en- 
joy privileges in the Church, proper only 
to riper years and intelligent piety. But 
it does imply that they are entitled to 
every privilege of receiving Christian re- 
cognition, inspection, government, instruc- 
tion and guidance, and bound to every of- 
fice of obedience and love to Christ and 
his people, which are appropriate to their 
age and circumstances, as members of 
the Church. Children are none the less 
members of civil society, entitled to its 
care and protection, and bound to serve it 
loyally, according to their circumstances, 
although not as yet qualified to vote, or 
eligible to office. Less than this the 
language of our Directory cannot import, 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 63 

with regard to the status of baptized child- 
ren in the visible Church. 

What then is the visible Church, and 
what the ground of membership in it? 
We accept the answer which our Confes- 
sion gives to these questions. But what 
does this fairly imply? Surely, that the 
true Church of God is made up of those 
whom he hath purchased with his own 
blood; and that those who apparently, or 
to the eye of a judicious charity, are of 
this number, are visibly, or for all pur- 
poses of human judgment and action, of 
this Church — L e. are the Church visible. 
Now in what way do they thus become 
visibly, or for all purposes of human recog- 
nition and treatment, of the number of 
Christ's redeemed people, the household 
of faith ? In two ways : 1. In the case of all 
capable of it, by a credible " profession of 



64 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

the true religion." Without professing it in 
some form, they cannot appear to possess 
it. And if this profession of religion be 
accompanied by heresies or scandals which 
render the profession of it unworthy of 
belief, then it does not render those who 
make it, visible Christians, or visibly 
members of the Church of God. 2. 
Those incapable of such profession, may 
be visibly members of the Church, by 
virtue of God's revealed covenant or 
promise to be their God. This is precisely 
the case with infants and the ground of 
their baptism. But in either case, mem- 
bership in the visible church is founded 
on presumptive membership in the invis- 
ible, which, as we have seen, "consists of 
the whole number of the elect, that have 
been, or are, or shall be gathered into one 
under Christ, the head thereof." Charnock 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 65 

says: "Baptism supposes faith in the 
adult, and in the parent, the promise of 
faith for the child." And Dr. Watts says ; 
"In my opinion, so far as they (infants) 
are in any way members of the visible 
Church, it is upon supposition of their be- 
ing (with their parents) members of the 
invisible Church of God." * 

Our standards surely set forth nothing 
less than this : they direct that baptized 
children be taught and trained to believe, 
feel, act, and live as becomes those who 
are the Lord's ; not merely that it is 
wrong and perilous to be and do otherwise, 
which is true of all, whether within or 
without the Church, but that such a 
course is inconsistent with their position 

* Both the foregoing quotations are taken from a letter 
of Eev. Mr. Foxcroft to Edwards, in the works of the 
latter. Yol. iv. page 450. New York edition. 



66 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

as members of the Church, placed in it 
by the mercy of God, and bound to his 
service by vows made for them by their 
parents, whose duty and privilege it was, 
thus to act for them and give them a place 
among the people of God, until they be- 
come competent in their own persons, 
and of their own choice, either to retain 
or renounce it. The case is precisely 
analogous to that of adult professors and 
non-professors. All are bound to obey 
Christ on pain of perdition. But who 
does not admit a specialty in the profes- 
sor's obligation, and a flagrant breach of 
the proprieties of his position, if he b8 
recreant to it ? * 

* "All baptized persons are members of the Church. 
Their duty, therefore, to acknowledge Christ before the 
world, rests on yet clearer grounds. It is true, we do 
not ascribe a regenerating grace to their baptism ; but 
we do not go to the other extreme of making this precious 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 67 

The Directory still more clearly implies 
the same presumption in regard to the 

ordinance a nullity. Those who have been baptized, 
stand in a relation to the Church different from that of 
the world at large. They have been designated as dis- 
ciples or learners, and where the parental obligations 
have been discharged, have been trained in religious 
knowledge. Such children of the Church should often 
consider the privileges and benefits sealed in this ordin- 
ance. They should be humbled for their sins, and for 
falling short of, or walking contrary to, the grace of bap- 
tism and its engagements. They should feel bound to 
the faith and practice signified by their symbolical sep- 
aration from the world. Children born within the pale 
of the visible church, and dedicated to God in baptism, 
are to be taught to read, and repeat the Lord's Prayer, 
and the Apostles' Creed ; to abhor sin, to fear God, to 
pray, and to obey the Lord Jesus. And when they ar- 
rive at years of discretion, it behoves every one of them 
to consider the duty of ratifying the vows made in their 
name, by a personal avowal of allegiance to Christ. The 
case of such is therefore widely different from that of the 
world without." — " Flain words to a young Communi- 
cant" By J. W. Alexander, D. D, 



68 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

baptized, in asserting it to be their duty 
and privilege, on reaching the years of 
discretion, to come to the Lord's table, 
unless by heresy, ignorance, or scandal, 
they rebut this presumption ; just as those 
who in words profess Christ may in works 
so deny him as to nullify that profession ; 
while at the same time, it everywhere 
maintains that piety as well as knowledge, 
weak or strong it may be, but still evan- 
gelical and saving, is a qualification re- 
quisite for the safe and profitable partici- 
pation of that sacrament. The credible 
profession of it is requisite inforo eccksiae, 
the reality or a prevalent conviction of 
its reality in the light of candid self-ex- 
amination, inforo conscientiae et Dei. All 
this imports nothing less than a presump- 
tion that the children of the Church are 
and will prove to be the chosen of 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 69 

God, until they dispel that presumption, 
by their own misconduct.* 

The same thing appears from the very 
nature of baptism, which is indeed the 
badge of union to the visible Church, 
and why ? Because, according to every 
account of it given in Scripture or our 
standards, it is a sign of those graces and 
a seal of those covenants, which per- 
tain to those who are in Christ, not only 
of Israel, but Israelites indeed. Now al- 
though sacramental signs and seals of 
themselves convey nothing, any more 
than the seal on a title-deed, and although 

* " Children by baptism are solemnly received into the 
bosom of the visible Church, distinguished from _ the 
world, and them that are without, and united with be- 
lievers." Directory of Church of Scotland, as quoted in 
Keport on the Discipline of baptized children, to the 
General Assembly, in 1812, by Drs. Miller, Kichardsand 
Romeyn. 



70 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

they are not attended with any convey- 
ance of the blessings signified to those 
who do not in faith accept them, any more 
than a sealed deed conveys real estate 
till it is delivered and accepted, j^et the 
administration of the seal is founded upon 
a presumption that the things sealed will 
also be bestowed and accepted, till the 
contrary appears. On no other ground 
can infant baptism have significance or 
propriety. In the case of infants, the 
parent, guardian or sponsor quoad hoc, ac- 
cepts or professes to accept for himself 
and child the blessings signified and of- 
fered ; he binds the child, so far as such 
promise depends upon the sponsor for ful- 
filment, to comply with the conditions of 
the offer, and accept the covenanted mer- 
cies when he becomes competent to act 
for himself. He therefore covenants on 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 71 

his own part, so far as he acts for the 
child, or can exert an influence in mould- 
ing his principles, feelings, and conduct, 
his mind, heart, and life, to train him up 
in the way in which he should go ; in 
short, to educate him to think, feel and 
act as a child of God. When this is done 
in its true meaning and intent, most com- 
monly the child, on arriving at riper years, 
will fulfil his part of the covenant. He 
will recognize and personally assume his 
baptismal vows as his own, personally 
accept by faith the blessings thus stipu- 
lated and sealed to faith, personally take 
his place as a professed follower of Christ, 
and serve him without fear in holiness 
and righteousness all the days of his life. 
There are three parties to this covenant 
sealed in the baptism of children : God, 
the parent and the child. Originally the 



72 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

first two are the responsible stipulators. 
At the age of majority the child comes 
in place of the parent. God will be faith- 
ful. If the other parties fulfil the con- 
ditions, he will convey the covenanted 
blessings. If they are not conveyed, the 
fault is with them, one or both. Let God 
be true, though every man were a liar. 
But if the second party, the parent, be 
faithful, this w 7 ill ordinarily secure the 
fidelity of the third, by God's blessing. 
Yet herein he hath not divested himself 
of his own sovereignty. His promise is 
fulfilled, if filial faith and piety ordinarily 
ensue upon faithful parental training. 
For the principle, that a child rightly 
trained will not prove false to his training 
in after life, is one of those general laws 
of God's providential and gracious deal- 
ings, which may have its exceptions. It 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 73 

declares the tendency and usual effect, 
rather than the invariable rule. "A soft 
answer turneth away wrath/' means that 
such is its tendency and its ordinary, but 
not invariable, effect. And who for a 
moment doubts that the class of baptized 
recreants would be vastly less than it now 
is, if Christian parents were generally 
faithful to their high trust and solemn 
vows; if, with a just idea of the status of 
their baptized little ones, they exercised 
due diligence and discretion, in bringing 
them to a consciousness of their rank, ob- 
ligations and privileges as members of 
the family of God, and in moulding their 
habits of thinking, feeling and acting, into 
harmony therewith ? Should we then 
witness such vast numbers of them taking 
their place with heathens and publicans, 
to which a widely prevalent theory and 



74 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

practice consign them from the start, in 
the hope, doubtless, of afterwards possibly 
reclaiming them ? And should we have 
such masses, who, instead of owning the 
God in whose name they were baptized, 
profane his name, and, under the very 
shadow of the sanctuary, u live as hea- 
thens do r We think not. 

The same conclusion is supported by 
known or conceded facts : 1. With regard 
to the large number of children of God's 
people who die in infancy, few whom this 
discussion concerns, doubt that they are 
members of the Church invisible, and 
heirs of salvation. 2. Of those that grow 
up, a large proportion, even under the 
most inadequate nurture, and the most 
unpropitious modes of thinking on this 
subject, ultimately, (and for the most part 
in early life,) give such evidence of piety, 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 75 

that they are admitted to the Lord's 
Supper on a credible profession. Even 
Baptist churches are replenished from 
their children more than from any other 
source. 3. The proportion is still greater, 
immensely greater, in churches which 
preserve unimpaired, practically as well 
as theoretically, the true idea of the 
status of baptized children, and also keep 
high the standard of evangelical truth 
and piety, as in the Free Church of Scot- 
land. Probably the proportion of them 
who in time give hopeful evidence of 
piety, in such bodies, is as large as of 
those who are first gathered into the visi- 
ble Church from the world, upon the 
credible profession of conversion. 4. 
When Christ bids little children to come 
to him, it is on the express ground that 
" of such is the kingdom of heaven." 



76 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

But of •whom is this predicated if not of 
the seed of the pious, whose God he has 
specially covenanted to be, assuring his 
people that his Spirit and his word shall 
not depart out of their mouth, nor out 
of the mouth of their seed, nor out of the 
mouth of their seed's seed, from hence- 
forth and for ever ? Isaiah lix. 21. " The 
Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, 
and the heart of thy seed, to love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." 
Deut. xxx. 6. 

If we are not wholly mistaken in this 
analysis of the doctrine of Scripture and 
our standards on this subject, which, so 
far forth, harmonize with all the great 
Protestant symbols, then we apprehend 
it follows : 1. That Christian parents, 
or others in loco parentis, having charge 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 77 

of the religious training of children, are 
invested with high duties, and encouraged 
by glorious promises. They are to take 
these children as those whom Christ has 
claimed for himself, by affixing to them 
the seal of his grace. They are to be 
deeply conscious themselves, and do their 
utmost to make the child deeply conscious, 
that, as a visible member of Christ's Church, 
he is false to his own position if he diso- 
beys that Saviour, as truly as if he should 
make war upon his own family, or join 
the enemies of his country. He is to be 
made to understand that the feelings, acts, 
habits, and manners which Christ enjoins, 
alone befit his position, as truly as if he 
were an adult professor. He should know 
that his attitude requires that all questions 
relative to action be determined in the 

light of Christian principle and divine eom- 

7* 



78 THE CHILDREN OE THE CHURCH, 

mand. Of course he should be constantly 
instructed according to his age and capacity, 
and in all the ways in which light penetrates 
the youthful mind, what Christianity is in 
doctrine and life, what the Lord would 
have him to do. He should be taught 
the Bible, and Catechisms suited to bis 
years. Moreover, by the light of holy 
example, by all ingenuity of illustration, 
suggestion, and sweet insinuation, which 
paternal wisdom, or the delicacy of ma- 
ternal tact can supply, should the holy 
truths of the gospel be entwined with 
the tendrils of the tender, forming mind, 
to " grow with its growth, and strengthen 
with its strength." There is a high 
sense in which the parent and teacher is 
master of the thoughts, judgments, and 
consequent feelings of the opening mind. 
It is on this great truth that the divine 



And sealing ordinances. 79 

economy of social life is largely based, 
and that the covenants and rites which 
appropriate to God the children of his 
people are founded. The very end of the 
mysterious and inviolable oneness effected 
by the marriage tie is, that parents may 
have " a godly seed." Hence the seal- 
ing rite of circumcision, and, by parity 
of reason, baptism, is extended to servants 
over whose nurture they have control. 
Gen. xvii. 12. 

Indispensable, however, as the work 
of imparting knowledge is, there is a 
higher, more delicate and difficult work 
to be done, in all good education, intellec- 
tual, moral, and religious. It is to train, 
by which we understand the formation 
of right practical habits, in that sphere to 
which the education pertains. And by a 
right habit, whether of body or soul, we 



80 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHUBCH, 

mean simply that state which fits and in- 
clines the subject to right action in the 
premises. Habits of vigorous and effect- 
ive intellectual activity are the grand 
benefit of a thorough intellectual educa- 
tion; correct moral habits, founded on 
good principles, are the grand result of a 
good moral education. Correct habits of 
soul, in regard . to spiritual and divine 
things, are precisely what is wrought in 
it by regeneration. For this no outward 
culture or human training is a substitute. 
But as the Spirit operates not in defiance 
or suspension of the laws and activities 
of our rational and moral nature ; not in 
contravention of, but in giving due effi- 
cacy to, outward motives and means; and 
as God's promise is annexed to faithful 
training ; so where this is faithfully, dis- 
creetly, and prayerfully given, we have 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 81 

reason to hope and believe that the invisi- 
ble working of the Spirit will silently 
mingle with and interpenetrate it, and 
make it not in vain in the Lord. Now, 
since there is a wide sphere in which the 
parent has command of the activity of the 
child, and can contribute to the formation 
of outward habits, and even to habits of 
thought and feeling, he is bound by divine 
command, by baptismal vows, by every 
instinct of a gracious soul, to make these 
habits, so far as he is responsible for them, 
conformed to the law of God. Hence, 
God sets it forth as the high commenda- 
tion of Abraham, and the ground of his 
large covenants with him and his posterity : 
" For I know him, that he will command 
his children and his household after him, 
and they shall keep the way of the Lord, 
to do justice and judgment \ that the Lord 



82 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

may bring upon Abraham that which he 
hath spoken of him." (Gen. xviii. 19.) 
Hence, the holy resolution of Joshua, " As 
for me and my house we will serve the Lord." 
Hence the commands and promises with re- 
gard to training children in the way in 
which they should go, and bringing them up 
in the nurture (or discipline) and admoni- 
tion of the Lord. Hence, according to our 
Directory, they are to be taught the Lord's 
prayer ; also " to pray, to abhor sin, to 
fear God, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ." 
Much under God depends upon the skill 
with which this difficult and delicate duty 
is performed. It is in its nature continu- 
ous, and in its forms manifold. It requires 
that mingled firmness, fidelity, gentleness, 
amenity, and sympathy with the young, 
which are too seldom found together. The 
more common and perilous delinquency 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 83 

is a gross negligence which indolently 
abandons children, without remorse, to 
their own wayward impulses. Multitudes 
omit Christian training in every proper 
sense. But there is a fault so perilous 
in many who mean to be faithful in this 
regard, that the Apostle finds occasion 
expressly to warn them against it. 
" Fathers, provoke not your children to 
wrath, but bring them up in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord." We have 
seen the good influence of many a pious 
father worse than frustrated, by a stern- 
ness and severity, a harshness and aus- 
terity, a frowning and unsympathizing 
distance from his children, which, if it 
commanded a reluctant eye-service, com- 
manded nothing better, and repelled their 
affections, not only from him, but (we 
fear) from the religion which he thus ini- 



84 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

personated before them. And in many 
such cases, the wonder that children so 
trained grow up in irreligion, is misplaced. 
The promise has failed because the con- 
dition of it has failed. Such children 
have not been trained as God requires. 
It is quite as easy to err and fail by 
governing too much, as by not governing 
enough.* 

In aid of this domestic Christian nur- 
ture, come, or ought to come, "the inspec- 
tion and government of the Church." Of 
course, so far as direct discipline is con- 

* " His carriage towards his children was with great 
mildness and gentleness, as one who desired rather to be 
Joved than to be feared by them. 

He was as careful not to provoke them to wrath, nor 
to discourage them, as he was to bring them up in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord. He ruled indeed, 
and kept up his authority, but it was with wisdom and 
love, and not with a high hand. He allowed his children 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 85 

cerned in their younger years, this must 
be mainly exercised through the parents, 
by due vigilance and pains-taking on the 
part of the pastor and elders, to see that 
they measurably discharge their obliga- 
tions and vows to train their children up 
for Christ. But, even in their early days, 
the officers and members of the Church 
should manifest a kindly recognition of, 
and tender interest in, them as lambs of 
the flock. They should feed them with 
knowledge, guide them by counsel, and 
specially commend them to God in prayer. 

a great degree of freedom with him, which gave him the 
opportunity of reasoning with them, not frightening them 
into that which is good. He did much towards the in- 
struction of his children in the way of familiar discourse, 
according to that excellent directory for religious educa- 
tion, Deut. vi. 7, which made them love home, and delight 
in his company, and greatly endeared religion to them." 
Life of Philip Henry by his son 
8 



86 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

Where the old practice of the pastor meet- 
ing them, catechizing, and exhorting 
them as children of the Church, has gone 
into disuse, it should be revived, and per- 
petually maintained. All things should 
be so conducted as to render the child 
conscious of his Church relations, and to 
point his mind forward to the time when 
he will, for himself, be called to assume 
the privileges and responsibilities of mem- 
bership; just as minors in the State look 
forward to the time when they will reach 
the franchise and obligations of matured 
citizenship. They should feel that, in 
either case, they may forfeit the high 
boon by their miscarriage ; and, in that 
event, will be exposed to corresponding 
penalties and privations, at the hands of 
the proper authorities. When they ap- 
proach majority, the Church should spare 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 87 

no efforts of instruction, exhortation, re- 
buke, and encouragement, which their cases 
may severally require, in order to evoke 
dormant graces into exercise, and inspire 
those pious views and feelings which pre- 
pare and dispose them to come to the 
Lord's Supper. If they slide into acts or 
habits incompatible with godliness, either 
before or after their first approach to the 
table, they should be visited with faithful 
and tender admonition; and, if still incor- 
rigible, with censure; and until they mani- 
fest repentance, they should be debarred 
from communion. Even if they display 
no bar to communion, which human eyes 
can detect, they are to be taught that 
allowed secret sin, of omission or commis- 
sion, disqualifies them in the sight of God 
and their own consciences ; and that they 
cannot acceptably receive and give this 



88 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

pledge of union to Christ, unless, sensible 
of their sin and deploring it, they trust his 
blood for deliverance from it, and are 
firmly resolved, by his grace assisting, to 
die unto sin and live unto God, and walk 
in all his commands and ordinances blame- 
lessly. But if they know all this, the 
very act of coming to the Lord's Supper 
is a solemn profession of faith in, and obe- 
dience to Christ ; and, unless there be that 
in their known words or deeds which dis- 
credits such a profession, the Church 
cannot lawfully exclude them; for inward 
disqualifications which they* do not avow 
or otherwise manifest, while they intelli- 
gently profess Christ, can be known only 
to themselves and their God. De occultis 
ecclesia non judicata 

* Says Edwards : u Not any pretended extraordinary 
skill of his (the pastor) in discerning the heart, but the 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 89 

Our church wisely requires the officers 
of the church to examine candidates for the 

person's own serious profession concerning what he finds 
in his own soul, after he has been well instructed, must 
regulate the public conduct with respect to him, where 
there is no other external visible thing to contradict and 
overrule it. And a serious profession of godliness, under 
these circumstances, carries in it a visibility to the eye 
of the Church's rational and Christian judgment." — 
Qualifications for Communion, vol. iv. page 421. 

In the controversy with his people, which led to their 
disgraceful rejection of him as their pastor, he offered to 
be satisfied with the following profession on the part of 
those baptized in infancy : " I hope I do truly find a heart 
to give up myself wholly to God, according to the tenor 
of the covenant of grace which was sealed in my bap- 
tism, and to walk in a way of obedience to all the com- 
mandments of God, which the covenant of grace requires, 
as long as I live." He says : " If there were an exter- 
nal conversation agreeable thereto, ... I should think 
that such a person, solemnly making such a profession, had 
a right to be received as an object of public charity, 
however he himself might scruple his own conversion, 
8* 



90 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

Lord's Supper, in regard to their " know- 
ledge and piety f not as therein under- 
taking to judge the secrets of the heart, 
but for the purpose of guarding against 
heedless, ignorant, irreverent intruders, 
and ensuring, as far as may be, that 
Christian knowledge, that apparent sin- 
cere trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 



on account of his not remembering the time, not know- 
ing the method of his own conversion, or finding so much 
remaining sin, &c. And (if his own scruples did not 
hinder) I should think a minister or a church had no 
right to debar such a professor, though he did not think 
himself converted. For I call that a profession of god- 
liness, which is a profession of the great things wherein 
godliness consists, and not a profession of his own opinion 
of his good estate." Reply to Williams, vol. iv. pp. 
465 — 6. This will hardly tally with Mr. Tracy's theory 
of the evidences of regeneration and fitness for the Lord's 
Supper ; while yet it does not prove that the great re- 
vival, and this theory, had no mutual interdependence, 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 91 

purpose of obedience to him, which are 
involved in a credible profession of faith. 
While they are to be instructed that 
the absence of these things is a disquali- 
fication for the Lord's table, our ministers 
are expressly required to invite to it all 
" such as, sensible of their lost and help- 
less estate by sin, depend upon the atone- 
ment of Christ for pardon and acceptance 
with God; such as, being instructed in 
the gospel doctrine, have a competent 
knowledge to discern the Lord's body ; 
and such as are determined to renounce 
their sins, and are determined to lead a 
holy and godly life." And this none the 
less, though they can give no history of 
the time, order, manner of the rise and 
progress of such exercises of soul. If 
such are their views and feelings, then 
have they full warrrant to come to the 



92 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

holy feast. Whether they remember the 

time and manner of the beginning and 

progressive development of these states 

of mind and heart, or whether these have 

ingrained themselves so imperceptibly 

into the warp and woof of their inner 

being, that they can mark no distinct 

epoch, or hinge-point in their career, as 

the crisis of the new birth ; it is enough 

that they can say, "Whereas I was blind, 

now I see."* Or even if the sanctifying 

work of the Spirit was coeval with, or 
1 

* H He would blame those who laid so much stress on 
people knowing the exact time of their conversion, which 
he thought was with many not possible to do. Who 
can so soon be aware of the day-break or the springing 
up of the seed sown ? The work of grace is better 
known in its effects than in its causes. He would some- 
times illustrate this by that saying of the blind man to 
the Pharisees," &c. — Life of Philip Henry by his son 
Matthew Henry. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 93 

anterior to their earliest remembrance, and 
so combined with their Christian training, 
as to actuate and rule the growth of the 
soul in its successive unfoldings ; so that 
the candidate remembers not the time 
when he did not fear God, abhor sin, and 
look to Christ for forgiveness ; he will 
make none the worse Christian, or be 
worse qualified for the holy Supper, on 
that account. " The wind bloweth where 
it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
cometh and whither it goeth ; so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit." (Johniii. 
8.) " So is the kingdom of God, as if a 
man should cast seed into the ground, 
and should sleep and rise, night and day; 
and the seed should spring and grow up, 
he knoweth not how. For the earth 
bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the 



94 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

blade, then the ear, then the full corn in 
the ear." (Mark iv. 26—28.) 

Were this idea of the import of infant 
baptism intelligently and faithfully carried 
out in the practical regimen of families 
and churches, we believe the amount of 
baptized apostasy would be greatly di- 
minished ; that piety among parents and 
children would not only be more widely 
diffused, but more complete, elevated, and 
symmetrical, as a vital force penetrating 
all the relations of life ; that the spec- 
tacle of devout men, fearing God, with 
all their house, would be as frequent as it is 
delightful ; that the Church would be en- 
sured perpetuity and increase, not merely 
by external conquest and aggregation, but 
by internal growth and evolution, in the 
multiplication of those happy families, of 
which we could say, " Behold how good 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 95 

and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
dwell together in unity/' " There the Lord 
hath commanded his blessing, even life 
for evermore I" Such a cheering faith is 
warranted by the promises of God, which 
are none the less true, though our unbelief 
fail to realize them. Such is the conclu- 
sion warranted by every rational view of 
man's nature, as related to the economy 
of redemption. 

It is easy to say that all this may be ac- 
complished by God's sovereign grace ac- 
companying his word, even without making 
account of the church-state of believers 7 
children, as has been set forth. True, all 
things are possible with God ; he can and 
does sometimes save men without any 
visible instrumentality but his written 
word. But is this his ordinary way? 
Or, as man is constituted, is it likely to 



96 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

be the most effective way? No; faith 
cometh by hearing, and it pleases God, 
by the foolishness of preaching, to save 
them that believe. For he works not in 
violation of, but in conformity to, the laws 
of man's active and moral powers. So 
in reference to the children of the cove- 
nant, his way is the best and most suc- 
cessful way, whether we can perceive the 
rationale of it or not. But is it difficult 
to see this ? Is not the effect of fixing 
their place, and lot, and sympathies, and 
associations with the world, at the outset, 
to give the world the advantage of a prior 
possession and use, of first moulding their 
tastes, attachments, and habits, so that 
the hindrances to their embracing Christ 
are augmented beyond measure ? Does 
not the attitude in which one is placed, 
have much to do in deciding what can be 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 97 

made of him ? And in all its bearings 
upon the kind of training which will be 
given to a child, and the effect which that 
training will have upon him, is there not 
a heaven-wide difference between the 
question, whether he shall apostatize from 
the Church, in which he was born and 
reared, to the world from which he was 
taken by the mercy of God, while yet a 
babe ; or whether he shall renounce the 
world, and all its associations, to which 
he has been wedded by a life-long habit 
and association, to take his place in the 
Church ? These and similar questions 
speak their own answer in the light of 
reason, experience, and the word of God. 
It was no irrational fear of the two tribes 
and a half, when they were afraid that 
the children of the tribes over Jordan 
should cause their own " children to cease 
9 



98 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

from fearing the Lord/ 7 by treating them 
as if they had " no part in the Lord." 
(Josh. xxii. 24, 25.) 

It is true that God is mindful of his 
covenant, notwithstanding the unbelief 
and shortcomings of his people, and we 
rejoice in the multitudes of their offspring, 
that, even under the most defective views 
of his covenant, and the most flagrant 
parental neglect, still become his children 
by regeneration and adoption. Even so, 
evermore where sin abounds, grace doth 
much more abound. Else what, and where 
were we all ? Nor would we, in the least, 
disguise or extenuate the danger of 
abusing such an administration in the 
house of God, as our standards teach, 
and we have very imperfectly shadowed 
forth. Like all other ordinances of God, 
it may be, and it has been, misconceived 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 99 

by the ignorant, and perverted by the for- 
mal, from the days of the father of the 
faithful, with whom the covenant was first 
in form made, until now. What then? 
What advantage hath the seed of the 
pious, and what profit is there in his bap- 
tism? Much every way; — not to those 
who pervert it, who take the rite without 
the substance, or mistake the rite for 
substance — but to those who justly 
apprehend it, and believe, and do accord- 
ingly, and in proportion as they so appre- 
hend, believe, and do. It is easy to say 
that the Quakers have piety without ex- 
ternal rites and ordinances, that the Ro- 
manists have these in profusion with 
scarcely any piety. But he who would 
make an inference from this, would simply 
show the narrowness of his mind. For 
another fact consistent with each of these 



100 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

is, that piety most flourishes in commu- 
nions which make evangelical faith the 
life of the soul, while they use the simple 
ordinances and sacraments of Scripture, 
not as barren forms, but according to their 
divine intent and efficacy, for the promo- 
tion of that faith. For, however bap- 
tism may save, there must be more than 
the outward washing away of the filth 
of the flesh ; even the answer (sponsion, 
inepumfia) of a good conscience towards God. 
All are not Israel that are of Israel. "He 
is not a Jew that is one outwardly; neither 
is that circumcision which is outward in 
the flesh ; but he is a Jew that is one in- 
wardly, and circumcision is that of the 
heart, in the spirit and not in the letter; 
whose praise is not of men, but of God." 
These views were among the common- 
places of the Reformed Theology, which 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 101 

gave being and shape to our own stand- 
ards. They were stated with various 
degrees of fulness and clearness, by dif- 
ferent standard authors, according to the 
measure of completeness and consistency 
which each one had reached in his own 
thinking on the subject. Some present 
the doctrine without those cautions and 
limitations which are a substantive part of 
it. Others use a loose phraseology, which 
puts their real principles in an attitude 
liable to misconception. But they with 
great unanimity teach that pedobaptism 
is legitimate, because, 1. By virtue of 
the covenant there is a presumption that 
the children of believers are among God's 
elect, to whom belong the blessings signi- 
fied and sealed in baptism ; 2. Because 
they are capable of receiving saving grace 
even in infancy. As expressed in the 



102 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

first Helvetic Confession, it is a ground 
of their baptism, that de eorum electione 
piS est prcesumendum. And since the elect 
either possess, or are destined to possess, 
regeneration and adoption, it is not un- 
common to speak of the elect, the regen- 
erate, the sanctified, the children of God, 
as one and the same. In this aspect some 
writers, Reformed and others, speak of the 
presumption that the children of believers 
are elect, till the contrary appears, as a 
presumption that they are regenerate, and 
children of God, till the contrary appears. 
The strong statements of Calvin, which 
many have tried to wrest to the support 
of baptismal regeneration, are well known. 
As God is pleased to covenant with his 
people to be a God to them and their 
seed after them, and to permit them to 
act as the representatives of their off- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 103 

spring, while these are unable to act for 
themselves, in stipulating for them the 
service and accepting the grace signified 
in baptism, Vitringa founds upon this 
fact the presumption that the baptized 
will in person accept the position, the 
service, and the blessings, thus assumed 
for them by parental faith. If God is 
pleased to regard and treat them in their 
parents, the presumption is that they will 
themselves assume the vows made for 
them, till the contrary appears. After 
showing that the promise of the covenant 
does not ensure to all and singular of the 
children of believers the grace of life, 
since all experience proves the contrary ^ 
he says, "When God hath begun to man- 
ifest his grace to the parents or either of 
them, we may not presume otherwise than 
that he will confer the like grace upon 



104 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

their infants, so long as the contrary does 
not appear." Non licet aliter prceswnere 
quam illam eandem gratiam prcestiturum 
infantibus, quamdiu nobis non liquet con- 
trarium. He even goes so far as to t 
say, Juste prcesumimus ex lege charitatis eos 
esse sanctificatos per Spiritum Sanctum ; a 
form of statement which, taken by itself, 
many would take as more than is true, and 
more than his real doctrine, as gathered 
from all his representations, means. 

De Moor, commenting on the confession 
prescribed to parents in the Belgic Lit- 
urgy, on bringing their infants to bap- 
tism, that as they are born in sin and 
thus subject to misery and condemnation, 
so they are sanctified in Christ, and there- 
fore to be baptized as members of his 
church ; {in Christo sanctificatos esse, ideoque 
tanquam membra ecclesioe ejus debere bapti- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 105 

zari;) expounds and accepts it in this sense, 
that a promise of saving grace is given 
indefinitely to the children of believers 
in preference to those of unbelievers, and 
that it is actually bestowed upon some 
of them in earliest infancy, whence it is 
permitted specially to entertain a good 
hope concerning children now offered in 
baptism by believing parents. Vnde 
speciatim de Usee liberis, qui nunc offerun- 
tur baptizandi, spem bonam concipere licet. 
This hope, however, he is careful to say 
is often disappointed in the event. He 
quotes Markius with approbation, as say- 
ing, that while it is conceded that profes- 
sion is a prerequisite to baptism in adi^ts, 
we deem it sufficient in the case of in- 
fants, if, in the judgment of charity, it 
be likely to follow. Putamus mfficere si 
infantibus secundum judicium charitatis sub- 



106 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

sequatur. The point to be observed is, that 
the baptism of children is here founded 
on the charitable presumption that they 
will prove to be partakers of the blessings 
it seals. 

Witsius, having shown that many chil- 
dren of the pious prove not to be children 
of God, and thus that the covenant must 
not be understood as ensuring the grace 
of life to all and each of them, says, 
" Charity requires us to count them as 
beloved children of God, and as of his 
family, till they evince the contrary by 
their depraved disposition and conduct." 
Charitas enim jubet infantes ejusmodi, ut 
difyctos Dei liberos, ipsiusque Dei familice 
adnwnerare, donee contr avium pessima indole 
pravisque facinoribus, &c. The words, " hy- 
pothesis," " presumption," " supposition," 
" count," " regard," &c, in such connec- 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 107 

tions, mean not the positive conviction 
that all the children of the covenant are 
or will be real children of God, any more 
than Paul meant that he really believed 
all whom he addressed as " saints" were 
really such ; but that they are to be 
reckoned and treated as among Christ's 
redeemed ones, till the contrary is 
evinced. 

We conclude with the following from 
the Life of Philip Henry by his son Mat- 
thew, author of the celebrated commen- 
tary on the Bible, as showing the views, 
practical and theoretical, of these devout 
men. If we cannot see our way clear to 
follow them, so far as there is any appear- 
ance of requiring authoritatively what 
ought to be the free act of the child, we 
think all pious parents should rejoice and 
labour to bring their baptized children to 



108 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, 

such views and feelings, as would lead 
them freely and intelligently, in this or 
equivalent ways, to fulfil their baptismal 
obligations. 

" He drew up a short form of the bap- 
tismal covenant for the use of his chil- 
dren. It was this : 

"'I take God the Father to be my 
chiefest good and highest end. 

" ' I take God the Son to be my Prince 
and Saviour. 

" ' I take God the Holy Ghost to be 
my Sanctifier, Teacher, Guide, and Com- 
forter. 

" ' I take the word of God to be my rule 
in all my actions; and the people of 
God to be my people in all conditions. 

" ' I do likewise devote and dedicate unto 
the Lord my whole self, all I am, all I 
have, all I can do. 



AND SEALING ORDINANCES. 109 

" c And this I do deliberately, sincerely, 
freely, and for ever/ 

"This he taught his children; and they 
each of them solemnly repeated it every 
Lord's day in the evening after they were 
catechized, he putting his Amen to it ; and 
sometimes adding, ' So say, and so do, and 
you are made for ever.' 

" He also took great pains with them 
to lead them into the understanding of 
it, and to persuade them to a free and 
cheerful consent to it. And, when they 
grew up, he made them all write it over 
severally with their own hands, and very 
solemnly set their names to it, which he 
told them he would keep by him, and it 
should be produced as a testimony against 
them, in case they should afterwards de- 
part from Grod and turn from following 
after him. 
lo 



110 THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH. 

" He was careful to bring his children 
betimes, (when they were about sixteen 
years of age,) to the ordinance of the 
Lord's Supper, to take the covenant of 
God upon themselves, and to make their 
dedication to God their own act and 
deed ; and a great deal of pains he took 
with them to prepare them for that great 
ordinance, and so to translate them into 
the state of adult church membership. 

"In dealing with his children about 
their spiritual state, he took hold of them 
very much by the handle of their infant 
baptism, and frequently inculcated upon 
them that they were born in God's house, 
and were betimes * dedicated and given 
up to him, and therefore were obliged to 
be his servants. Psalm cxvi. 16. I am 
thy servant, because the son of thine hand- 
maid. — Miscellaneous works of Rev. Mat- 
thew Henry; Vol. 1 pp. 51, 2. 



